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The Sims 3

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"Just imagine, if you had lived your entire life inside the house. Then... someone opens the door."

—E3 2008 trailer

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The Sims 3 is the third standalone game in the The Sims series, released in 2009.

In contrast to The Sims and The Sims 2, the game placed more emphasis on the neighborhood by making it all accessible in real time and making all families age and evolve along with yours, but this could be turned off. It did away entirely with the Aspiration meter and removed Fears; instead, when you fulfill a Want, it just adds a positive "moodlet" (Status Buff) to your physical-needs total, thus streamlining gameplay immensely. Lifetime Aspiration Score is retained, but the prizes you get from it are mostly modifications to the Sim's capabilities instead of physical objects (Bottomless Bladder, The Casanova, etc).

The Point Build Personality was removed in favor of five "Traits" which had direct and practical effects on gameplay: for example, an Athletic Sim learns the Athletic skill faster and gets more enjoyment out of their workouts; a Clumsy Sim trips everywhere, which can add a lot to transit times; and an Evil Sim can gain enjoyment from messing with other Sims, or use a coffee machine to make Evil Lattes.

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Relationships were simplified, with Sims sharing a relationship bar so both parties have the same opinion of each other, no longer allowing unrequited feelings. Finally, The Sims 3 added significant flexibility to the Sim and object design and customization options, though at the cost of very reduced support for user-generated, made-from-scratch objects, clothing and hairstyles.

Tropes in the game and its expansion packs:

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Tropes A-B

Addled Addict: Make a Sim and assign any/all of the following traits: Absent-Minded, Inappropriate, Insane, Party Animal. Childish and Dramatic can add flavor and more possibilities. Give said sim a bad habit: anything from constantly drinking to playing video games to burning/eating herbs to the bubble hookah to seeking Woo Hoo with everyone in sight. Have said sim do this thing to the exclusion of anything and everything else.

Adventurer Archaeologist: In the World Adventures expansion, Sims can now explore ancient graves — where they get to dig through rubbbles, disable traps, and dive through wells — to collect gems, treasures and money.

Aerith and Bob: You can have a household with names like Bob and Chris alongside Ignotius and Aife.

Affably Evil: Any Sim with a combination of the "Evil" and "Friendly" traits. Normally, Evil Sims will be Card Carrying Villains who actively do harm to other Sims, but adding the Friendly trait makes them less likely to do harmful acts autonomously.

Alternate Universe: Into the Future gives us a time machine which can send you to three possible versions of Oasis Landings; there's a normal version, a dystopian version and a utopian version.

Always Chaotic Evil: Almost all premade vampires have the Evil trait...at least, in Bridgeport. The five pre-made vampires in Moonlight Falls all lack the Evil trait.

Supernatural adds several new skin tones of various colors, including but not limited to: orange, pink/purple, and black.

Pre-made Sims demonstrating this include genies (which are normally blue), plantsims (which are green), and much of Dragon Valley's population (reflecting the denizens' elvish ancestry).

Various towns feature ghosts designed a special way, such as all-red, or gaunt, green-skinned ghosts. The colour of a ghost reflects how the Sim died, and since many different deaths are possible there are many different colours of ghost. For example ghosts who died of old age will be grey, ghosts who died from fire will be orange, and ghosts who died from eating a magic jellybean will be purple.

If you have Blaise Kindle give Alma Drill a hug, she will often get a wish to kiss her. Their household description also says: "Will their friendship be strengthened by the fact that they are living together or will it lead to things they never could have expected?" which could mean that they are meant to become a couple.

Aurora Skies gives us Jesper Sandstrom and Viktor Valquist, who seem a lot like a gay couple raising an adopted child together (the one who officially adopted her even gives her a invokedPortmanteau Surname) but are presented in-game as best friends.

The Sims 3 contains anachronisms within its own universe. The game is set 25 years before the first Sims game, making Bella Goth a child, but your Sims can go down to the library and read books titled Where's Bella and A Pleasantview Murder by Alexander Goth.

There are no aliens in the base game of TS3, yet in TS2 there are premade sisters in the same town with an alien ancestor. And then there's Don Lothario's time machine... The Sims 2 did mention that the Caliente sisters moved into town after Bella disappeared.

The Tragic Clown is a ghost in TS3, yet can be encountered alive in the original Sims.

The introduction of laptops and later, smartphones when they are canonically absent in TS1 and TS2.

Egyptian mummies in China and France. Slightly justified for France, given that Napoleon ordered the archeologic explorations of Egyptian ruins. For China, not so much, especially since they have their own version of mummies in real life.

The store sets can lead to this as while the game is primarily modern, historical or futuristic content can be bought and used.

The game looks like it's set in the late 2000s yet at the same time some characters and outfits seem distinctly vintage. This is easily seen with Agnes Crumplebottom's name and design, which could pass for WW2 era.

And Your Reward Is Clothes: In addition to all the perks that come with your career (money), you'll also unlock any and all career uniforms, like astronaut suits.

Animorphism: Pets allows you to use karma to turn a person into a dog or cat.

The "No Bills Ever" Lifetime Reward from Adventures prevents the household to receive bills. Since Adventures allows to decorate your home with various relics and artefacts which increase the value of the household, doing so results in progressively higher and higher bills (especially if you have the "Private Museum" Lifetime wish, which requires to do so), it's an invaluable addition to the DLC.

The Sims Finder App from the (in-universe) social network features allows to look for and meet Sims with a specific set of qualities and traits. Every single combination will always have a match, because it actually works not by pulling out already existing NPCs, but by creating from scratch a Sim with exactly the traits and perks requested.

Two job levels in the music career do this as well. Roadie has "their laundry, their lucky bandanas, or their significant others" and Music Talent Scout has "a new drummer, or bassist, or singer, or pianist, or spouse or all of the above"

Art Evolution: In contrast to the animesque The Sims 2, Sims in The Sims 3 has more realistically appropriate face proportions, although the shading and expressions still makes them quite cartoony.

Two Sims sitting at the same table while having a meal will autonomously chat while eating. It's not just an atmospherical animation, since it provides the same effects (fulfilling the Social need, raising the relations between them) you have by ordering a Sim to talk to someone.

Bridgeport features subway stations to travel faster through the town. Instead of being special objects that are only interacted with with specific orders from the player, they are automatically taken in account by the pathfinding AI.

Artificial Stupidity: While this is greatly reduced from the first game (definitely less Sims peeing themselves for no apparent reason), there still are some elements of this:

Give a home with two adults and a child only one bed, and anyone left without a bed will complain at those using them. There is no check for the appropriateness of doing so, so the husband may find his wife and daughter sleeping in the only double bed, and order the wife out of it.

Sims also will leave babies outside instead of in a crib occasionally.

When switching households, you may find that due to story progression, the entire family will be at the beach at 10AM on a Tuesday, children and all, despite needing to be at school/work. This sometimes causes sims to be fired from their job.

In nightclubs with elevators (a common feature in Bridgeport), if there's only one elevator, all the Sims present will try to crowd into it, jamming the whole thing up. A not-uncommon sight is finding a large gathering of Sims just standing around in front of an elevator come closing time.

The "go to work" AI routine is: leave the lot you live in, then got to your workplace. That normally makes sense, unless you play in the Bridgeport neighborhood. Some Sims live in apartment buildingsnote a special type of residential lot, working like a single lot with several distinct households, though only one is playable by a human player. If a Sim has to work in the apartment of another Sim inside the same building, the AI will order them to leave the building, then go back inside it.

A Sim who finishes cooking a meal without being affected by the hungry or starving moodlets won't automatically eat it, even if their "hunger" need is more than half empty.

The "Absent-Minded" trait's effect is to randomly erase the action queue. Even if said actions are "putting down a fire" or "going to the hospital while being in labor".

AI pathfinding uses the number of doors a Sim has to go through to calcute the shortest path (less doors equals shorter path), which sometimes has silly results. To go to work from her kitchen, Constance Shelley from Riverview leaves her house through a backdoor, then goes all the way back to the entrance while walking along the garden's fence (outside of the garden), which only requires to use a single door (the much more logical path is an almost straight line, but through three doors instead a single one).

Witches can put out fires by casting ice blast at them. However, if you tell them to do this they will often interrupt their own action queue to scream at the fire instead.

If you have both Ambitions and World Adventures installed, playable mummies with the Brave trait can roll wishes to join the firefighter profession and even have the "Firefighter Super Hero" lifetime wish. This is despite the fact that mummies are considerably flammableeven by sim standards.

Tons regarding the plant life. Potatoes, carrots and onions are root vegetables. Bananas do not grow on trees (they just look like trees). And so on, and so forth.

Cockroaches and spiders are both classed as types of beetle, while neither of them are beetles in real life (spiders aren't even insects). Moths are also considered a type of butterfly.

Fish do not die when they are caught, and can even be kept in the fridge for months before being added to a fish bowl where they will be perfectly healthy.

An intentional example, in that you can gain the ability to grow cheese, eggs, steak and burger patties on plants. There's also the omni plant which will produce multiple copies of whatever it is fed.

Pets:

Calico cats are listed as a breed, even though in real life "calico" is simply a term for a feline fur colour pattern, which can be seen in many different cat breeds (calico cats are not a separate breed on their own).

You can create fertile male calicoes, even though calico coloured cats in real life are always female, as the calico coloration is caused by one of her X chromosomes possessing a gene for orange fur, with her second X lacking an orange gene (both X's would have to have an orange gene for her to be fully orange, hence why orange cats are usually male). An extremely rare exception to this rule can occur if a male inherits an extra X chromosome from a glitched sperm cell; in which case, he will almost always be sterile.

Artistic License  Nuclear Physics: You can find plutonium ore in nature and have it smelted into ingots. Plutonium only exists in trace amounts in the earth's crust. The only reason we have any is because it's produced from uranium. It also looks like a greenish metal when smelted, instead of the gray metal it is in real life.

Wheeled vehicles accelerate and decelerate on the spot, don't have to slow down to make right-angle turns, and clip through other objects.

To build a second floor for your house, you have to provide support for it by way of pillars. Once the second floor has been built however, you can do as you please with them. Yes, you can even delete them. A few prebuilt houses even use this intentionally.

Invoked in-universe by the best fridge in the game, the MinusOne Kelvin Refrigerator. -1 Kelvin is not a theoretically possible temperature, but that didn't stop MinusOne Kelvin industries from copyrighting the name along with the slogan "Better than the best refrigerator theoretically possible!".

Kaylynn Langerak was just an NPC in The Sims 2, but has a family and backstory in The Sims 3. Goopy Gilscarbo was merely a TS2 townie but in TS3 has a food named after him, an appearance with his family in Monte Vista, and even an implied ex-wife and daughter in Barnacle Bay.

You can invoke this by becoming friends with "situational" Sims like Repairmen and Fire Fighters, who show up to perform a task and disappear. Inviting them over, or to hang out, and asking them on dates. If they move in, they'll stay and become a regular Sim.

Ambrosia, which when eaten increases lifespan by a huge amount, gives the second best moodlet in the game, and turns playable Ghost Sims into regular Sims - but it requires a Life Fruit (rare, requires Gardening skill of at least seven), a Death Fish (easy to find, hard to catch, requires a very high fishing skill or suitable bait, which requires suitable bait, which requires suitable bait, though the starting bait in the series is easy to get) and a Cooking skill of ten, plus the recipe costs 12,000 Simoleons! With some work, though, you can guarantee yourself a steady supply of the ingredients.

The Philosopher's Stone lifetime reward can convert items into gold bars for profit. The problem is that not only is it very expensive (costs you 40000 lifetime points) you are limited to only converting small, portable items into gold and that gold bars are actually worth less than some items. Not only that but the Philosopher's Stone has a rather high chance of failing and can end up either deleting your item, or turning your Sim into a gold statue and killing them in the process. note Sims turned into a statue by the Philosopher's Stone can be sold for a lot of money, so hey, at least their deaths didn't end up being that fruitless. Though your Sim may not even have to die at all if they have the Unlucky or Loser traits, or have a Death Flower in their inventory.

When paired with a rare plant called a Death Flower, using the Philosopher's Stone averts this and can be a big money maker, doubly so if University Life is installed and a Scientist can clone it.

The Philosopher's Stone also allows you to bind ghosts as a slaves. Ghosts can't die. Ghosts can use the Philospher Stone's transmute abilty. Profit. (though it's still not THAT efficient since it's only worth using on stuff like apples that you can get a lot of easily and aren't worth much if it fails).

For writers, publishing a "masterpiece"note it's a novel genre of its own, not a success rating above "best seller" provides a huge amount of royalties, but a masterpiece is so long to write that you'll still gain lots of money if you spend this amount of time writing much shorter books.

Bamboo Technology: The items are very customizable, down to the texture and material. If you wanted to take this trope literally, you could change pretty much every object, wallpaper and floor covering into bamboo... even stairs can now be changed.

Banned in China: In-universe example. If your Sim is a writer and you have World Adventures, you can get an opportunity saying that your books have literally been banned in China.

Baths Are Fun: Taking a bath as opposed to a shower can help a stressed out Sim to relax, Even more so if there's a rubber duckie in the bathtub.

Bath of Poverty: The cheapest shower will sometimes lose heat partway through use, resulting in a "cold shower" negative moodlet.

Bedlah Babe: Female Genies NPCs are dressed like this. It's also the default outfit of player controlled ones during character creation.

Being Evil Sucks: The Emperor of Evil is one of the best-paying jobs in the game in terms of salary-to-work-hours ratio. It also causes your Sim to emit a red glow that causes their relationship with all nearby Sims to steadily plummet. This causes the Emperor to slowly lose all their friends, especially if they're in the Emperor's household and therefore near them a lot of the time.

Bewitched Amphibians: (Supernatural): Witches can learn a curse that turns other Sims into toads (but just their heads; they still walk around like normal Sims, though).

Also in Supernatural,Fairies can trick people into vomiting frogs, and gold, making this a literal mixed blessing.

With Pets, a cat will get into one of these when it goes hunting. If it has low skill levels, it's probably going up against an insect... which will still manage to knock the cat several feet into the air multiple times before finally giving up the ghost. Along with dogs they can also fight raccoons like this.

Sims do this while fighting, with bar fights creating huge ones that any Sim can join and jump into.

Biting-the-Hand Humor: Someone was obviously disgruntled at the Sims 3 Store by the time University Life came out, because the following line was snuck into the Video Game Developer career track's job descriptions:

You can only draw so many downloadable coffee tables before snapping.

Black Comedy: An implied example. Sims with the Mean-Spirited trait get a bonus when writing books of the Humor genre.

Blessed with Suck: Sims with certain traits (including Supernatural Fan) will get a Lunacy moodlet during nights of the full moon, which grants +40 to your mood, but periodically causes your Sim to perform certain actions, including Lunatic Slap, Lunatic Embrace, and Freak Out. Freak Out CANNOT be cancelled out of, and interrupts anything you are trying to do.

Body Horror: If you're feeling daring, look at the nightmare fuel image pic. This glitch is freaky as hell. The most common explanation is modders making their own clothing from scratch which can screw up the imaging function, thus distorts the Sims themselves. Mods which allow Sims to perform tasks that don't have correct animations produce a similar effect. And then there are mods that allow you to directly do this.

There are certain mods that can increase the power of the sliders, often with horriffic results.

Bookworm: It's a trait. Sims with it read books faster, have more fun doing so, and often get wishes to read a certain number of books. They also make good writers, especially in the vaudeville genre.

Born Lucky: All sims with the appropriately named Lucky trait. They are (among other things) more likely to win bigger prizes in the lottery, get raises at work, and win games; and less likely to have mishaps like burning food, breaking objects, or being robbed.

Born Unlucky: Sims with the Unlucky trait, who are much more prone to misfortune. However, it does have a few slight bonuses like being better at writing auto-biographies, and a big one in that the grim reaper will bring you back to life after any death but old age. Combined with the various deaging options in the game (or simply disabling aging in options), they are effectively immortal. Though this comes with obvious drawbacks. And of course, there are alternative ways to avoid death or (unless you only have one sim) bring sims Back from the Dead, so it's debatable how useful it really is.

Butch Lesbian: Dylan Shear from the Roaring Heights neighborhood is explicitly lesbian (she's married with another woman, Audrey Shear), she has a male-sounding first-name, her traits include Handy and Slob, she starts with a Handiness skill at 4, her lifetime wish ("the Tinkerer") is linked to Handiness, and the family's bio says she prefers wearing suits. Her default outfit is rather feminine, though.

But I Can't Be Pregnant!: Reaction of male sims to being abducted and made alien pregnant; the alien pregnancy moodlet is called "Unexpected Weight Gain" to reference this disbelief. Persists even if the sim in question has already had at least one alien baby.

Butt-Monkey: Sims with the Unlucky trait have a higher chance of disaster happening to them (e.g. fire, burglaries, etc.), while those with a Loser trait has a lower chance of being successful in their endeavours, as well as being more likely to get a negative event at school/work.

Button Mashing: The loading screen challenges can become this if the player doesn't know what to look for.

Cast Full of Gay: This can happen sometimes in The Sims 3 as the AI for NPC Sims seems to norm to whatever orientation the player's Sim(s) might be (possibly from reacting favorably to low-level "Romantic" interactions such as being complimented on their personalities or casually asked if they're single), which can result in neighborhoods with a lot of same-sex couples after a while.

The Casanova: Hank Goddard, Parker Langerak, and Xander Clavell all aspire to be this.

Casanova Wannabe: Give your sim - at minimum - the Flirty, Loser, Inappropriate, and Unlucky traits and then add a 5th trait of your choosing and voila! If you play them this way, you'll have this trope down to a tee. To cross the tee, make your sim a Pretty Boy with a cheesy French name and dorky clothes.

Cats Are Mean: Cats (and dogs and horses) can be given an Aggressive trait, which causes them to get into fights with other animals more frequently and chase burglars and mailmen.

Celebrity Endorsement: Katy Perry is a huge Sims fan, and has collaborated with the Sims 3 team multiple times, including her own stuff pack. (Unfortunately it's often regarded as the worst stuff pack ever, due to the ultra-colorful dessert furniture which Tastes Like Diabetes.)

One of the biggest complaints among older fans in The Sims 3. Many characters origins are off, ages are inconsistent with TS2, and the preference for random new Sims and time-travelling TS2 Sims over old fan-favorites from TS1 are some of the reasons as to why TS3 has a large Fanon Discontinuity.

In The Sims: Hot Date, Agnes' deceased husband was Robert Crumplebottom, a famous puppeteer. In The Sims 3, he's a completely unremarkable man named Erik Darling.

Frida Goth, Gunther's sister in The Sims 2, does not appear in The Sims 3 until the Supernatural expansion.

In The Sims Bustin' Out, Bella Goth's family (the Bachelor family) was described as being made up of "occultists, mystics and decadents" and Bella was the only neighborhood Sim to appear in Magic Town in The Sims: Makin' Magic, strongly hinting that she has magical powers of some sort. This was further hinted at in The Sims 2: Apartment Life, in which a statue of her appears in the mystical town of Belladonna Cove. In The Sims 3, she and her family are as mugglish as possible, and it appears that the Goths are now the magical ones.

Crazy Cat Lady: Hetty Lionheart from the Appaloosa Plains neighborhood. She has the Cat Person, Insane and Loner traits, starts out living alone with four cats, and even walks around wearing a cat hat and apron! Her bio explicitly calls her a crazy cat lady.

A bad CC item known as "The Girl Dressed Doll" or "The Girl Doll Dressed" is considered this amongst many simmers, mainly due to the damage it does rather than its appearance. Not only did the doll corrupt other CC and sometimes render lots unplayable, but a glitch allowed the item to attach itself to any lots the player packaged for exchange with other players, causing it to appear out of nowhere - and to respawn even after deleting it from your in-game inventory.

For some simmers, the imaginary friend doll newborn sims get in the mail is considered this. It's harmless, but just creepy.

Crutch Character: Brooding Sims are this in writing. They can write poetry - a moderately profitable genre - immediately, but improve at a slower rate.

Cursed with Awesome: Many traits that sound inherently bad actually have some redeeming quality:

If your Sim has the Loser or Unlucky Trait, things that would normally kill a Sim will instead lead to them being spared by the The Grim Reaper, as he finds their suffering amusing.

Loner Sims' social need bar will drop much slower, reducing the need to interact with other Sims and allowing them to spend more time on other activities.

Insane sims can relieve the social and fun needs by talking to themselves.

Sims that Hate the Outdoors will never get the "Stir Crazy" moodlet from staying on the home lot too long, which makes it fantastic for self-employed sims.

Neurotic Sims can Freak Out, where the go into a 10 secondBSOD, which can completely disturb other sims around them. After doing so, they end up with the "tranquil" moodlet, where they are completely relieved of their stress, and will instead be happy for a few hours. In Supernatural, the Freak Out action can also happen to sims with the Lunacy moodlet during a full moon, with the same results.

Socially Awkward Sims sometimes mess up social interactions, but they learn the science skill at an increased rate.

Brooding Sims can brood to raise their fun and social needs and can write poetry without having level 7 Writing.

Sims with Commitment Issues will get less of a relationship penalty from breakups and divorce, and will not get the Heartbroken moodlet.

Over-Emotional Sims will experience a +25% boost to positive moodlets, though they will also get a -25% penalty to negative moodlets.

Shy Sims will get a +10 "Among Friends" moodlet when with multiple friends.

Snobs receive greater mood boosts from nectar and get positive moodlets from buying expensive things and from compliments.

Childish Sims get mood boosts from children's toys and can experience the Cuddle Time moodlet from teddy bears, which is normally only obtainable by younger Sims.

Hot-Headed Sims receive a bonus from writing satire.

Kleptomanic Sims can steal things and sell them, or alternatively they can return the stolen items for a positive moodlet.

Vegetarian vampires can get the +15 "Sated" moodlet from drinking plasma juice or eating plasma fruit, while non-vegetarians can only get this from drinking from another Sim.

Werewolves in Supernatural are said to be cursed (with the life state spread via a "Cursed Bite"), but the benefits of the life state generally outweigh the problems. The problems being that the wolf form isn't pretty, they're forced into said wolf form every full moon, the wolf form has several antisocial interactions by default, it's impossible to design a wolf-form sim's wardrobe, and the wolf form (but not the human form) is slow to recover Energy through sleep. The benefits: werewolves have an adult lifespan half again as long as an ordinary human Sim, an increased chance to win fights in wolf form (and, unless they're somehow locked out of the form—say, due to pregnancy—they'll transform into the wolf form to fight), a slower Energy drain and a +30 positive moodlet while in the wolf form, and the ability to hunt for gems, metals, and bugs on public property (and also their own property). Transforming into the wolf form can also cure certain magical afflictions, such as the Tragic Clown and even permanent zombification—and with few exceptions, they can transform freely between forms. Going both ways in this regard is that a Sim can't get pregnant in wolf form, so het WooHoo while the female partner is in wolf form will never result in pregnancy. On the one hand, it's an excellent contraceptive; on the other hand, it becomes a problem if your Sim is trying for a baby...or is already pregnant, as pregnancy locks a Sim into human form. In gameplay terms it's generally better to stay in the wolf form unless your Sim is trying to get some sleep, trying to do something the game won't let you do in wolf form, or you want to leave the Sim on autopilot for a while.

Curse of the Pharaoh: In the World Adventures pack, if one disturbs their sarcophagus ornsteals their treasure, the Sim would be subject to their curse. If the curse is not treated for two weeks, they would die, and their ghost color will be dusty black.

Cute Kitten: a Sim who uses the "Awwww" interaction on a kitten will receive the +10 moodlet "Kittens!" for one Sim hour. A cat that had just given birth to a litter of kittens will give herself and her family the +80 moodlet "New Kittens" for one Sim day.

Date Rape: A witch is able to use a love charm that makes the Sim fall in love with the first person they talk with. In addition, If you use a Potent Friendship elixir on a Sim affected with a love charm then interact with them. The Sim has no choice but to love you.

Dark Is Not Evil: Give your Sim the Grumpy, Loner, and Inappropriate traits and dress them in Gothic clothes and give them Delinquent Hair; but, also give them the Friendly and Good traits and you'll end up with this trope. You could also replace Grumpy with Hot Headed for the same effect (albeit with a little more rage).

The Goth family of Sunset Valley. Despite dressing mostly in black and living next to a graveyard, they're not bad people.

Death by Irony: There was a bug which caused some sims to starve to death... while competing in an eating contest.

Death from Above: Possible with the Ambitions expansion pack. When a Sim is outside, there is a very rare chance of an immense shadow blanketing them. This is your cue to move them as far away as possible. Thirty seconds later, a Gigantic Space Rock will crash into the ground.

Death Is Cheap: The Science Lab will offer opportunities to resurrect recently-deceased family members, and with Showtime, a genie wish can be used to resurrect them. The only Final Death in regards to playability is dying while already a ghost. note Okay, so the ghost doesn't die per se, but s/he does "Return to the Netherworld" (Purgatory/Heaven/whatever you want to call it).

Defective Detective: You can make one of these yourself by entering the Investigator career and giving your Sim traits such as Insane, Loner, Inappropriate and Socially Awkward. You could also make them an Addled Addict by having them constantly under the effects of herbs or nectar.

In University Life, once you passed all tests at the end of semester, the Sim is summoned to the graduation ceremony on the last Saturday, then the player characters get a diploma item and a new trait slotnote if you graduate several time, each new graduation gives another diploma and allows to change the trait in this slot. If the graduation ceremony is botched for some reason (either pathfinding issue or direct player input), the diploma and the trait slot are granted once the Sim goes back to their neighborhood.

There are lifetime wishes consisting in having §50,000 and §100,000 in riches (calculated from both the actual household's funds and the fully furnished lot's worth). If a Sim is created with one of those wishes and then added to an already existing household, the wish will actually require a richer household consisting in the initial sum plus the household net worth at the moment this new Sim has been added. This raised requirement prevents players to abuse those lifetime wishes to get easy lifetime happiness, since adding a newly created Sim to an existing household would result in much more money than you should have at game's start.

Cats and minor pets are considered as familiars by a witch (being near the houselold pet or carrying it grants the "Animal Familiar" moodlet, which results in spells using less mana). Since pets and witches are additions of distinct EPs (respectively Pets and Supernatural), this feature shows that developers thought about interactions between features from different DLCs.

The Sims Finder App from University Life allows to search for Sims with a set of traits (and other qualities) that can be entirely customized by the player. Traits added by mod are taken in account by the feature.

Disappeared Dad: If one checks the famiy trees for the McIrish or French families, River McIrish and Sandi French have mothers, but no fathers, living or dead, nor are they ever mentioned.

Disproportionate Retribution: Performing mostly harmless pranks in Generations (like placing a whoopee cushion on a chair) will sometimes result in a severe punishment such as revoked privileges or being grounded for two days without being able to leave the house at all, even to go to school.

Also, if your Sim has the appropriate level of Inventing skill, and something breaks, they'll often get a Wish to Detonate the broken object.

In the "Late Night" expansion pack, a celebrity may get publicly disgraced even for minor things like passing out in public.

Doomed by Canon/Saved by Canon: This is a prequel after all as certain characters that have disappeared or died in the Sims 2 (such as Agnes Crumplebottom and Bella Goth) are the former while the people who ended up being alive by the Sims 2 (such as Kaylynn Langerak and Mortimer Goth) are the latter. However, depending how the player plays, they can play both of the tropes straight or avert them but the latter won't be considered canon.

Dropped a Bridge on Him: Occasionally while playing a different Sim, a neighbor will randomly "die on a bus", despite the lack of buses in the game. The "moving out" event, which effectively erases your Sim from history, also applies.

Drunk Driver: Your Sims are quite able to jump in their car/truck/on their motorcycle no matter how much they have drank, or no matter what herbs they have consumed and there is no negative consequence for doing so.

Dystopia: One of the possible outcomes of changing the future in the Into the Future expansion—a dingy, trash-filled future under constant meteor bombardment, where it's apparently normal to eat bugs and play in trash piles.

The other outcome, Utopia, is arguably a Crapsaccharine World in which Sims are constantly happy... because they're constantly drugged by "dew" which has been introduced into the atmosphere by the military.

E-F

Emergency Broadcast: In Seasons, you can look up the weather forecast on your TV. Sometimes, you will hear the EBS tone, although no emergency ever happens.

Exact Words: You can use this yourself when completing opportunities. For example, in one opportunity a Sim asks you to supply harvestables for use in cooking. You can give the Sim nothing but poisonous mushrooms and beeswax and still complete the opportunity since those items are technically considered harvestables.

Gobias Koffi is Tobias from Arrested Development. The name comes from when Gob and Tobias came up with a business plan to invest in coffee shops under the moniker Gobias industries. The name was an unintentional portmanteau of Gob and Tobias and was said as "Go buy us some coffee."

Jebidiah Wilson from Riverview bears a strong physical resemblance to another Dr J. Wilson, of House fame.

The Supernatural EP and it's neighbourhood (Moonlight Falls) take this Up to Eleven.

The same applies to Into the Future and it's special neighbourhood (Oasis Landing).

Evil Genius: Any sim with a combination of "Evil" and "Genius" traits. Premade examples include vampire Elvira Slayer from Bridgeport.

Eye of Horus Means Egypt: One of the most useful treasures found in Al Simhara are the Eyes of Horus. They can be used by Sims to teleport them from one eye to the other. One Eye of Horus also appears on a purchasable Al Simharan tapestry.

Averted with the description for lapis lazuli, which says that "if Horus had blue eyes, they would have been cut from this stone". This is despite lapis only being found in Shang Simla.

Fanservice: So much more in this installation. Starting from bunk beds and strollers to breast sliders and body hair.

Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Death is still around, and you can get cursed by a mummy (or even become one), build a Robot Buddy (or a time machine), meet (or become) a vampire, own a living doll or unicorn, or get a genie in a lamp (which, unlike in previous versions of The Sims, can be set free). And that's just before the Supernatural expansion came out...

Forgot to Pay the Bill: Your household gets an electricity bill depending on how many electronic devices you own and use. You are given two days' notice before it gets shut off, and another reminder on the day before. You can pay the bill through mail, but if you ignore it long enough, the household's lights and electronic devices turn off until you pay it again.

Free-Range Children: Sim children are able to go everywhere the town alone with a 10:00 pm curfew. (In The Sims 2 kids had to go with an adult or teen.)

Free the Frogs: It's one of the pranks a teenager can pull in their school in Generations.

Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Vampires with the Good trait are definitely this, and those without the Evil trait most likely qualify as well (since vampires in this game cannot kill or accidentally turn people in the process of feeding). The Friendly trait makes this trope literal.

Game-Breaking Bug: Largely averted, surprisingly enough. Not that there aren't bugs— there are PLENTY, many of them egregious— but very few that are out-and-out gamebreaking, thanks to a very robust console command system. Almost anything that rebooting the game won't fix, typing "testingcheatsenabled true" followed by "resetsim [name of affected Sim]" will.note That said, there is a Computer Breaking Bug, especially for laptop users or those without really good cooling systems. The game's FPS limitation is bugged, sometimes generating FPS up to 600/second. The result is intense overheating of your CPU and GPU to the degree that some users have lost computers (combining this bug with an integrated graphics setup is especially dangerous). There is a fix online - look up Sims 3 FPS Limiter and 3Booter. Using this combination allows the game to be played on normal and even low-end PCs without overheating and damage, by reducing the FPS load on the GPU to a set value (30 to 35 is recommended).

Gameplay and Story Segregation: One of the celebrity-related opportunities requires to eat at a restaurant, then notice that the food isn't very good but promote the restaurant anyway. When normally eating at a restaurant, a random event can give a moodlet which flavour text says that you ate one of the best meals of your life. The event isn't disabled when you take the opportunity, so you can somehow get an opportunity about a mediocre meal while you benefit from a moodlet stating said meal was incredibly good.

Genius Bruiser: The goal of the "Perfect Mind, Perfect Body" Lifetime Aspiration is to perfect both the Logic and Athletic skills.

Genki Girl/Keet: Sims with the "Excitable" and/or "Party Animal" traits, notably if they are children.

Girly Bruiser: Make the standard outfits for your female teen/young adult sim be pink and frilly, then give them high levels of Athletic and/or Martial Arts skills. Add traits to taste.

Global Currency: With the World Adventures expansion, your Sims can travel to China, France, or Egypt. No matter where they are, Simoleons are the currency of choice.

Which becomes Universal Currency with the new Lunar Lakes neighborhood, since it is located on an alien planet.

Global Currency Exception: With the World Adventures expansion, each of the three foreign locations features a Special Merchant who sells adventure-related items, ranging from pemmican to a luxury tent. The payment they each require is Ancient Coins, which are gained by going on adventures and exploring tombs. Also an example of Global Currency, because ancient coins gained in one country are no different from those gained in another.

The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Beatrice and Bianca Crumplebottom of Moonlight Falls, with their sister Belinda caught in the middle (both in age and in the middle of all their fighting).

Glowing Flora: The Life Fruit is a mystical fruit with resurrection properties that gently glows and sports a cute little glimmering halo. It can even be used as a natural light source on the lot. Supernatural also introduced some varieties of bioluminescent mushrooms that can be used to craft potions.

Good Is Not Nice: The 'Good' trait is not incompatible with 'Mean Spirited' or 'Inappropriate'. Yep, you can make a sim who is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold using these traits. They will still be locked out of most mean interactions, though.

G-Rated Drug: Your sims can "burn herbs" in the fireplace or put them in food in University Life. Both have shades of this, as mentioned above, except that many of the herbs are real herbs such as peppermint, licorice, ginseng, chamomile, lavender, and the like.

Green Thumb: Fairies have the ability to cause plants to grow quickly through their magic; combined with a natural boost to gardening skills, this makes gardening an extremely viable source of income for them. Averted with the trait of the same name, however, as it signifies that a Sim is merely very skilled at gardening.

Grim Reaper: The Reaper returns from the previous iterations of the series. Just like before, it appearss with its Sinister Scythe when Sims die and send their ghosts to the Netherworld. It also has a big soft spot for Death Flowers.

Hand in the Hole: These show up in some tombs in World Adventures. Some contain treasure, some contain switches that deactivate (or activate!) traps, and some contain bugs that will freak out all but the bravest Sims.

Heavy Sleeper: It's a trait which allows Sims to sleep through alarms and loud noises.

Hell-Bent for Leather: Oh-so-possible, since you can put a leather texture on just about anything you like.

The treatment of Viktor Valquist and Jesper Sandstrom from Aurora Skies comes off as this; their arms are around each other's shoulders in the household image, they're said to be inseparable and often visiting parks and restaurants together, and Viktor even adopted a child named Linn Valstrom. And yet, according the in-game relationships, they're just "best friends forever". This is because the game will never have NPCs autonomously enter same-sex relationships unless the players "seeds" homosexuality by romantically interacting with an same-sex NPC. The NPC can then spread it (which is why your neighbourhood can turn heavily gay/lesbian over time). Which would make sense if they were NPCs, but the Valquist/Sandstroms are playable, and playable sims can autonomously enter homosexual relationships.

Averted in the promotional videos for University Life.

Also averted with Dylan and Audrey Shear, an openly lesbian couple from Roaring Heights.

Hikikomori: Sims with a Hates The Outdoors trait will want to stay inside their homes as much as possible, and would even get a bad moodlet for being outside too long. Bonus point if they also have the Loner trait, where they'd outright refuse to be among large crowd and is said to prefer "being in their own bedroom" than being in social functions.

Hipster: Any Sim with the "Avant Garde" trait in University Life. They get special interactions like "Condescend the Mainstream" and "Enthuse About Obscure Music".

You can make an Imaginary Friend into a real human with the help of a potion. The Imaginary Friend turned human will become a part of the household and get moodlets for doing "human things" for the first time such as eating or using the toilet.

You can gather several canopic jars in World Adventures to get a mummy to join your house, and then have them sleep in a Blessed Coffin of the Kings until they become human again.

Fairies, witches, vampires and werewolves can turn human if they drink one of the Alchemy potions (or get said potion thrown at them, or unwittingly take the potion mixed into a drink). They can also be asked to "Forsake the Fae/Witchitude/etc" by the sim they're in love with.

Hybrid Overkill Avoidance: SimBots cannot become vampires. Mummies cannot become vampires. SimBots and vampires cannot become mummies, although one of their traits turns into the Evil trait if they try anyway. Any of the above, however, can be turned into ghosts and then made playable with an opportunity. These rules extend to other life states, such as the ones in Supernatural (Zombie counts as an affliction rather than a full-blown life state, so it can mix with other types). Of course, this can be averted somewhat with a core mod.

This trope can be avoided by making sims with different life states have a child. There is a chance that the resulting child will be both life states; however, this can be fairly buggy.

I Meant to Do That: The "That Was Deliberate" lifetime award from Showtime, allows an performing Sim to invoke this trope convincingly if they mess up a part of their show.

An Ice Person: Ambitions enables Sims to become this with their sculptures, especially once they create 25 in ice.

I Just Want to Have Friends: Implied with the Shy trait. Shy Sims get a negative "Feeling Shy" moodlet when around non-friends, but get a positive "Among Friends" moodlet when with friends.

Immortality Begins at 20: Children of all life states age up at the same rate; only once a Sim reaches Young Adult stage will the aging process slow for certain life states (fairies and vampires take five times as long to age up as humans, while werewolves take 50% longer to age up than humans).

Incredibly Lame Fun: For Sims with the Neat trait the Fun motive increases when they are cleaning.

Interface Spoiler: In University Life, you're normally know whether you graduated or failed to when receiving the grade sheet, on Saturday morning after Friday's finale exams, but if you got "graduating" as an active wish, you'll know you made it several hours earlier, when the wish is fulfilled on Saturday at 12 p.m.

I Want My Jetpack: In the first expansion packs, some futuristic technology is available. Literally averted in Into The Future, which allows jetpacks in the present-day world.

Jared Frio and Xander Clavell of Sunset Valley are big ones, with Jared being described as being cruel towards everyone he meets, even his friends, as well as abandoning Claire Ursine while she was pregnant. Xander sees nothing wrong with mooching off of his elderly parents.

Applies to any Sim with the "Mean Spirited" and/or "Evil" traits (unless an Evil Sim also has the "Friendly" trait). Evil sims will take delight in the misfortunes of others, steal candy from toddlers/babies, and will laugh when "mourning" someone, unless they had a close relationship with that person.

Additionally, if left on auto-pilot, Sims with the Mean-Spirited trait will periodically insult or attack nearby Sims (even their friends!), which really hurts their relationship values.

Sinbad Rotter, of Twinbrook. All but one of his traits are outright negative (his Flirty trait is debatable). If his personalbiography means anything, though...

The Grim Reaper will occasionally point and laugh at a Sim that just died. Also it's said that the reason he spares the lives of Unlucky and Loser sims who die prematurely is because he finds their suffering too amusing to allow it to end too soon.

Jet Pack: Your sims can obtain them in Into The Future, with enough knowledge of Future Technology.

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Karma Houdini: Normally if a Sim detonates an object outside of their own lot or the junkyard they will have to pay a fine. However this fine comes in the form of a bill, so Sims with the No Bills Ever lifetime reward can blow up anything they like with no repercussions whatsoever.

Played with. A Sim who ends up as a donor to a vampire's Drink command will get a small positive boost to their relationship and a positive moodlet.

On the vampire's side of things, how forceful the bite is depends on the Sim. If they're in a relationship with them, it's much gentler.

The Klutz: The "Clumsy" trait. Sims with this trait can literally trip over their own feet and they are more likely to break objets when using them. If clumsy sims propose marriage, they are very likely to drop the ring.

Lamarck Was Right/Patchwork Kids: Sims' offspring will have whatever hair color the parent Sims currently have. So, if you create a black-haired Sim, later give her purple streaks, then have her conceive a child, this child may very well be born with purple streaks. This effect also extends to facial features, if you use AwesomeMod to edit the Sim after creation. (And thank goodness it does.)

When babies are born, the genetics will trace back at least 5 generations in your Sim's family tree. This means, your Sim's parents may not have the same genetics, but they will be somewhere along the tree.

This applies even to adoptions. Blue haired woman adopts a kid with ordinary black hair, who himself has children via the normal method? There's a very real chance the grandchildren will be looking like a grandmother to which they have no biological relationship at all...

This is also how the offspring of vampires or imaginary friends inherit their traits. If both of them are paired together, you can even have Imaginary Friend-Vampire hybrid children.

Sometimes hair and eye colors can appear in children even if their parents (or any related family member) don't have them. For example: This is◊ a couple that has and always had dark hair. Their two older children have dark hair but their youngest child is blonde.note The white-skinned Sim on the far right of the picture is unrelated to the family, but the blond kid in the middle is a game-generated child.

Leitmotif: The game has a theme tune called The Sims Anthem. The tune itself is a leitmotif that can be heard in the other BGM tracks in the game, and in other games of the series and even in The Sims Freeplay.

Lethal Chef: Any unskilled Sim without the "Natural Cook" trait cooking on a cheap or mid-priced stove is almost guaranteed to burn the food, start a fire, or both. Hell, even waffles are difficult to make for these Sims.

From the main menu, loading into the game takes on average about 10 minutes. With performance-improving mods and player actions it can be cut down to 5-6.

The CAS is also notoriously laggy. Many players report long wait periods when, for example, switching from one clothing category to another. Changing the color of the shoes your sim wears in their secondary Sports outfit will likely take up at least 5 minutes as the game has to load up each individual outfit type, the specific outfit, clothing category and the Sim preview model before you can move onto the next stepnote In this specific example, the game first loads up CAS, which opens on "Everyday 1" outfit. Clicking on the "Sports" category slowly loads up "Sports 1" outfit, including the clothing menu and sim preview. Then pressing "Sports 2" slowly loads up the above again but with the secondary outfit. Now clicking "Shoes" loads up all shoes, and after which Create-A-Style also has to load up. As such, creating an entire wardrobe becomes a massive time sink.

Living Forever Is Awesome: Can be played that way if a sim gets an age freeze potion. They can master every skill, get to the top of every career and even complete every lifetime wish, but even after all that, they could always just settle down, start a garden even, and watch as their family and legacy grows and prospers, shaping the very town around them. Maybe they'll even write some books about all they get to see too.

In the French version, the pregenerated sci-fi novel title Blender's Fame is translated as La gloire du mixeur, which is a literal translation but completely forgets the originalShout-Out.

Also in the French version, in World Adventures, the Egyptian shawarma dish is translated as "kebab" (the usual name of "döner kebab" in French). Shawarma and döner kebab are similar dish, but döner kebab is Turkish while shawarma is an actual Egyptian dish.

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Mad Bomber: In Ambitions, a Sim with a high enough Inventing skill to detonate objects may get wishes to detonate a certain number of objects. If Late Night is also installed and the same Sim is a celebrity, they will become infamous via public disgraces and have a hard time maintaining friendships if they decide to act on their wish. Bonus points if they are also Evil, Mean-Spirited or Insane.

Mad Libs Catch Phrase: "Play with X". Whenever the trailer for a new expansion is released, the trailer will show you how you can play with several different things (i.e. spring flings, the night, romances, pets) at the end of the trailer it will scroll through all of these very fast, and end with "Play with Life".

University adds features to unlock two new traits slots to young adult/adult/elder Sims (raising the number of traits to seven), thus adding even more unique abilities to a Sim. The slots are unlocked with actions that can be repeated, and doing so allows to change the trait in the relevant slot. One of the slots is related to the social group skills (reaching level 8 in any of them), which can be done by performing some actions (e.g. playing video games for the nerd group) or buying levels from the Lifetime Happiness Rewards list (reaching level 8 is cheaper than most other rewards). The other slot requires to graduate in the university.

Supernatural life states offer many cool and unique abilities while "normal" Sims don't have any. Supernatural life states actually have so many advantages over Muggles that there is no point in playing the latter, beside roleplay or Self-Imposed Challenge. Vampires' weakness to sun is objectively disadvantageous on paper, but ingame it only become dangerous if the Sim remains outside on a sunny day for three hours (and so isn't much of a drawback if the Sim is self-employed), can be countered with potions, and the Immportal Lifetime Happiness Reward allows to permanently remove it (since vampires have a longer life expectancy, hoarding Lifetime Happiness points is easier).

Misery Lit: In-universe: Sims with the Unlucky trait get a sales boost when writing in the Autobiography genre.

Misplaced Wildlife: You can find a wide array of fauna ranging from tropical birds to falcons in the wild all in your base neighborhood.

Missing Mom: Leighton Sekemoto in Sunset Valley has a son, Sam. However, no mother is mentioned, nor is there one in the family tree.

Mock Hollywood Sign: A HOLLYWOOD-inspired sign has been written in Simlish on Starlight Shores.

Morality Pet: Evil sims are just as capable of emotional attachments as any other sim, making it very likely they'll have at least one.

Mugging the Monster: A criminal Sim who robs the house of a Sim with the Brave trait may find themselves driven off by said Brave Sim. This is more likely if the Brave Sim has high athletic or martial arts skill, and even more likely (and literal!) if said Brave Sim is a werewolf.

Mummy: These appear in tombs in all of the travel destinations, though for obvious reasons they are most common in Al Simhara. A mummy will come out of its sarcophagus if a Sim tries to open it or takes treasures in the same room. They will then try to fight the Sim, and while they are slow, they are very strong compared to a regular Sim. If a mummy knocks out a Sim they may curse them, which will cause them to die in two weeks time if the curse is not removed.

Mundane Object Amazement: While exploring the mausoleum, Sims can find treasures. They will get a popup saying something like "Amazing! If everyone knew that the catacombs contained treasure like [item], they would have been picked clean years ago". This popup will still appear if the 'treasure' is something worthless like an apple seed.

Nature Lover: One trait is "Loves the Outdoors"—such Sims get positive moodlets when outside.

Neat Freak: Neat or Snob Sims will gain stronger negative moodlets from messes than other Sims.

Nightmare Fetishist: Evil Sims will have wishes to visit the graveyard and see ghosts, including wanting to see ghosts of some people who are still living. Also, Supernatural Fans will get small positive moodlets for socializing with supernatural Sims.

No Celebrities Were Harmed: Sofia Carlton, of Twinbrook, shares some subtle (and a few not-so-subtle) similarities with Paris Hilton. Honey Darnell is very similar to Dolly Parton.

No Historical Figures Were Harmed: In one adventure chain in Shang Simla, the players Sim will have to fight a mummy named Dong Huo, which is just one letter away from the real life Chinese tyrant, Dong Zhuo. One adventure in the chain even mentions that he was the scourge of the Three Kingdoms, the same historical period the real life version is associated with.

Older Than They Look: Lincoln Porter, one of the pre-made sims from Island Paradise. If you didn't look at his bio, you'd probably never guess that he's an elder. Madeline Buckshot, one of the pre-made sims from Showtime counts too. You'll never believe that she's an elder despite looking a lot younger.

One Curse Limit: Werewolf sims can cure themselves of some magical afflictions—like the Tragic Clown and even permanent zombification—by transforming into wolf form.

One of the Kids: Any adult with the Childish trait. They play with toys, play tag, do other things only kids would do, and get on better with children. Premade examples include Zelda Mae, Madison Van Watson, Blair Wainwright and Molly French.

Online Alias: There is a Sim in Sunset Valley who goes only by his online alias, "Cycl0n3 Sw0rd".

Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Socially Awkward Sims will get a -5 "Foot in Mouth" moodlet after failing a social interaction.

Our Ghosts Are Different: They act pretty much like living Sims, other than being see-through, floaty, and (if you don't get a certain opportunity to "restore" them) only coming out after midnight. They can even have "ghost babies" with living Sims. Playable ghosts have identical needs to their living counterparts (yeah, ghosts must eat, sleep, and pee); their life expectancy is identical to living standard Sims.

Our Vampires Are Different: In Late Night, vampires have glowing skin and bright-colored eyes. They do not die directly from sun exposure, but if they stay out in the sun for too long their thirst meter drains more quickly and they temporarily lose their vampiric powers, which include reading the minds of regular Sims, making regular Sims think of the vampire-in-play, running at "speed 5," and learning skills faster than regular Sims. Vampire Sims survive off of plasma (blood), which they can obtain from biting a Sim, drinking a plasma juice pack available in refrigerators (Supernatural), or eating plasma fruit (Late Night); dying from thirst is the vampiric equivalent of a regular Sim dying from hunger, although the ghost is a deep red color. They are also negatively affected by garlic, and can sleep on a platform that makes then float (or they can sleep in a bed, but the vampire-specific "bed" refills their energy bar faster). They are also not immortal, but they do have an adult lifespan many times longer than ordinary Sims. Even in-universe, a vampire can be "different"; the Lifetime Happiness reward "Immortal" stops the aging process (making the sim have an infinite lifespan unless their life bar is Elderly and maxed out), slows the thirst meter's drain rate, and removes the daylight weakness in favor of sparkling in the daylight.

The Perfectionist: It's a trait which makes cooking, painting, and writing slower but better.

Pet the Dog: The Sims Pets expansions (Unleashed in The Sims and just Pets in The Sims 2 and The Sims 3) make this literal.

A Sim that is the legitimate offspring of a firefighter has access to 2 hidden traits. The first is Fireproof, which pretty much falls into Boring, but Practical territory, but it does gets very interesting when it is combined with the second trait, which is (ironically enough) Pyromaniac, a trait that enables the Sims who have it to set everything they want to on fire, and even get a happiness boost for doing so. Daredevils can also survive being on fire for 3 hours (others die after one).

A Unicorn in the Pets expansion pack can also ignite anything they want to at the cost of magic points.

In Supernatural, witches can use the Fire Blast spell to set things (and other sims) on fire.

Poke the Poodle: Evil Sims can... TAKE EVIL SHOWERS! And then they can MAKE EVIL WAFFLES, and wash it down with an EVIL LATTE! MUAHAHAHA!!! You can also take candy from a baby, beat people up, and imply one's mother is a llama.

Played very straight. There is an operating criminal organization in every town, and the police do not interfere for the most part. Sims can drive vehicles with "drunk" equivalent moodlets, and will not get arrested. Detonating everything in sight or using Fire Blast on everyone in sight will not lead to arrest. Beating up every sim in sight will not lead to arrest. Pretty much the only time the police ever will arrest a sim is if the sim abjectly fails a mission/chance card in the criminal career, or if said Sim is a teen violating curfew/throwing a very noisy house party after hours.

Subverted if your sim is in the police or private detective careers - in which case you can decide how "useless" they are.

Also subverted with the Social Worker - while they aren't technically the police, if a child sim is near death, they will appear and take them away.

If a burglar breaks in, you can have your sim call the police. If the police officer doesn't get there in time or loses the fight, the burglar will get away with the stolen goods. Sims with the "Brave" trait can fight the burglars themselves.

You can invoke this by making a sim that has Evil, Mean, Grumpy, or Hot-Headed traits (and/or all of them), putting them in the police career, and having them engage in the "slap" and "fight" interactions with people (and if they are a witch, do everything from Fire Blast people to turn them into toads).

You can also invert the trope by having other sims fight or fire blast or toadify said sim - with zero consequences for doing so.

Pregnant Badass: There is nothing stopping a heavily pregnant International Super Spy from raiding the 'secret' criminal base, except possibly a bout with morning sickness.

President Evil: Any Sim with the Evil or Mean traits who happens to be at the top of the political career.

Prequel: Set about 20 years before the first game, the default neighborhood features Bella Goth (neé Bachelor), Mortimer Goth, and Kaylynn Langerak as kids, and Michael Bachelor as a teenager. Mrs. Miss Crumplebottom is a playable adult. Riverview continues this with Betty Newbie (née Simovitch) and Bob Newbie as teens and Skip Broke as a child.

Princess in Rags: Polly Maloney from Bridgeport. Her family was rich from real estate (the apartment where Polly lives was built by them, she lives in its basement), until they went bankrupt due to being overshadowed by newer real estate developers and disappeared. She also wears an old, faded fur coat (hinting her formerly rich background).

The University Life expansion pack changes playing games on a computer from some no-name game of an unknown genre to giving Sims the option to play several games. All of which happened to be published by Electronic Arts.

Several of the free downloadable items from the official Sims 3 website and store also fall into this trope, such as Coca-Cola branded t-shirts or other corporate branded items.

Say nothing of the Diesel Stuff Pack, which featured the eponymous brand.

Psychopathic Man Child: Any sim with the combination of "Evil" and "Childish" traits. Premade examples include VJ Alvi of Sunset Valley.

Some of the fish you can catch have punny names. Examples include the Tragic Clownfish (complete with clown makeup and red nose) and a literal Red Herring.

Eggplants, which grow literal eggs.

Put on a Bus: Unplayed Sims can randomly "move away", being deleted from the neighborhood, or randomly die. A mod to fix this (and a lot of other quirks) arose almost immediately, and in the tool to customize said mod, Pescado used to reference these tropes directly ("nobusdeaths", etc.)

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The Real Spoofbusters: "Ghost hunter" is an optional career, using various gadgets to exorcise poltergeists.

Robosexual: In Ambitions and Into The Future, SimBots/Plum-Bots can have sex with human Sims.

Sad Clown: Drinking an Origin of the Tragic Clown elixir will force your Sim to become this. A misfire of a LLAMA might also result in this. Anybody in the same room as your Sim will start sobbing hysterically.

You can catch the Tragic Clownfish, which is dressed like a clown and has a sad face.

Sadist Writer: Mean spirited Sims seems to be VERY good at writing stories that are focused on belitting or making fun of people and/or their political affiliation.

Screw Yourself: There is a bug that creates two copies of a person in one town. When they then meet at work or school, they quickly become best friends due to having the same exact interests. Naturally, this leads quickly to romance.

Also the Clone Drone Elixir.

Separated at Birth: Fans have speculated that Davy Cho and Dany Shue in Hidden Springs are really twin brothers, due to their similar age and appearance and the fact they are both adopted.

This might also be the case with Leina Orey and Loki Larson in Oasis Landing; one confirmed to be adopted and one implied to be adopted, and both alleged to expy of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia.

Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Most of the time, werewolves can freely change between their human and wolf forms, but if a werewolf sim is forced into the wolf form for any reason (e.g. the initial transformation after being bitten, transformation from the Voodoo Doll item, transformation from stress or anger, transformation from the full moon), they will be locked into the form for six hours in-game time (or, in the case of the full moon, until 6 AM the next morning, for a total of 12 hours in-game time). On the other end of the trope, a pregnant werewolf is locked into human form until the baby arrives (conversely, the wolf form cannot, in most circumstances, be made pregnant).

Shipper on Deck: In University Life, a person with high Social Networking skill can get people to hook up with each other, either as a legitimate attempt to bring compatible people together, or pair two incompatible people for the lulz.

Shy Blue-Haired Girl: The amount of customization this game allows means you can literally make a shy blue-haired girl.

Sliding Scale of Living Toys: In the Generations expansion pack, toddlers are given a doll by a mysterious relative, and if it's named and loved enough by said toddler, when they grow into a child, the doll achieve Level 4 on the scale and will become their imaginary friend, able to perform social interactions with the child (but no one else in the family can see it and will think the kid's crazy), and even help out with chores or get food. The imaginary friend can become real to everyone through several methods.

Slobs vs. Snobs - Both "Slob" and "Snob" are traits, but this is actually averted; the trait that conflicts with Slob is "Neat" and the trait that conflicts with Snob is "Easily Impressed," so not only could two Sims with each trait get along (depending on their other traits), a single Sim could have both.

However, it's played straight in that Neat Sims would be considered to be snobs as per the trope definition.

Perfectionist Sims also have some snob aspects, and they can conflict with Slobs note for example Perfectionists have an interaction where they complain about Slob Sims, this isn't available to Sims with other traits. though it is possible for a Sim to have both traits.

Spin-Off Babies: A number of popular adult characters from The Sims and The Sims 2 make appearances, with (roughly) appropriate ages considering it's a prequel set 25 years before the first game and 50 before the second. Notable appearances are made by elementary-school age Mortimer Goth and Bella Bachelor in Sunset Valley, and high-school age Bob Newbie and Betty Simovitch in Riverview.

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Technicolor Eyes: Create-A-Sim will let you give your Sim eyes of any shade and color you want.

Technicolor Fire: You can give any fireplace an upgrade to give you blue, green, or purple fire. It will still have regular fire if it sets your house on fire though.

Timed Mission: Some of the potential opportunities that Sims can get have a time limit. Opportunities, however, can be cancelled at any time and there is no penalty for not completing them. Your Sims just won't receive the reward.

Tin-Can Robot: The Simbot from Ambitions, as well as Plumbots from Into The Future.

Tsundere: Any Sim with the "Hopeless Romantic" trait combined with either "Mean Spirited" or "Unflirty".

Trademark Favourite Food: Each Sim has a favourite food, and they will clap their hands and whoop in excitement before eating it. However, it doesn't seem to give them any positive moodlet.

Presumably Mummy Snacks are this to mummies, as mummies are quite happy to let you raid their tombs as long as you let them eat their snacks in peace.

Troll: Of course, there's the option Inappropriate, Evil, or Grumpy sims have to troll whenever they use a computer. But University Life introduced an entirely new form of trolling, with the Relationship Transmogrifier. A master of "Social Networking" can, with their smart phone, turn lifelong friends into bitter enemies, can hook up all of the men or women in the neighborhood with each other, or more.

True Beauty Is on the Inside: Fairies can afflict a Sim with an Inner Beauty curse, which turns them ugly for 24 hours. This has in-game effects, as other Sims may point and laugh at the now-ugly Sim. And if the afflicted Sim uses Mean interactions during that time, the timer resets to 24 hours. A Mean-Spirited or Evil Sim can thus remain afflicted with the curse for a long time.

Too Many Halves: In the description of a bottle of nectar there is a breakdown of the fruit used to produce it, given as a percentage for each fruit. However, for some nectar the percentages add up to 99 rather than 100. Strangely, many of the percentages given should not actually be achievable in the game. Making nectar requires 10 fruits and so each percentage should be a multiple of 10, but found nectar bottles can have any percentage of fruit.

TV Genius: The Socially Awkward trait plays the "smart people have no social skills" part straight. Sims with the trait mess up social interactions, but gain the Science skill at a higher rate than other Sims.

Twofer Token Minority: Most pregenerated Sims are Caucasians (beside the locals from Shang Simla and Al Simhara) and either single or in heterosexual relations. Not counting custom player characters, the neighborhood added by the Roaring Heights includes a couple of married lesbians, and of them (Audrey Shears) is black.note The Shears are the first explicitely LGBT couple introduced among the pregenerated characters in the Sims franchise

Umbrellas Are Lightning Rods: The cover of the seasons expansion to this game shows a poor Sim in a thunderstorm, getting electrocuted through her umbrella by lightning.

Undead Child: It is quite possible to have so-called "ghost babies" by either having a female sim get impregnated by a male ghost (and vice versa) or by killing a Young Adult or Adult female, and turning them into a playable ghost via Oppurtunity. Unlike other examples of the trope, however, they are quite cute.

Unnamed Parent: Quite a few, such as Miraj and VJ Alvi's mother and Leighton Sekemoto's father.

Unstable Equilibrium: The Over-Emotional trait makes all moodlets 25% more effective, meaning that players who actively give their Sims good moodlets while avoiding the bad ones benefit all the more.

Vampires Own Nightclubs: Vampires first appeared in the "Night Life" expansion, which also introduced night clubs of all varieties. The vampires even get their own private vampire club.

Vampires Sleep in Coffins: If you have expansions, vampires can sleep in coffins, but vampires can also sleep in normal beds.

Vegetarian Vampire: Vampires with the vegetarian trait. There are "plasma fruits" they can harvest and eat instead of drinking Sims' blood. They can also just get "plasma juice packs" from the fridge, which are apparently vegetarian (possibly made from the same plasma fruits). Dayvid Musgrave of Moonlight Falls is a premade example. Naturally, any vampire can use these alternatives; vegetarians are the only ones required to. Even more traditional vampires can't kill Sims they drink from, nor can they accidentally turn them.

Vengeful Vending Machine: The University expansion pack comes with vending machines. Slamming into one can cause it to fall on you, causing death by Blunt Force Trauma.

When using the Photography skillnote a new feature from World Adventures, each available photography subject is sorted in several thematic collections; completing five of them grants an award (photographs being worth more Simoleons). One of those collections, "Oh the Calamity!", include a repoman and a social worker, so, completing this specific collection would require to mistreat a child or not paying your bills on purpose.

It is possible to freeze a sim's Hygiene need. By having them work out.

Sims with the Daredevil trait gain a positive moodlet when they are set on fire.

Because of how the University performance meter worknote a reworked work performance meter, which raises when Sims go to courses, read their notebook, study with a computer, train a skill relevant to their Major, or use specific items, then drops when Sims stop those actions, this performance meter decreases when Sims are going to their courses (since walking isn't a studying action), while going to courses doesn't raise it faster than the other actions. To fill the performance meter faster, the more efficient way is to skip the courses (minus the exams, of course) while studying by yourself.

Viral Transformation: A vampire can turn a human sim into another vampire if their relationship is high enough. A werewolf (in wolf form, obviously) can pass their "curse" on to a human sim as well; a high relationship makes it easier but is not strictly necessary. Human sims with a high enough relationship can request to be transformed by either of these two (though the werewolf request only is available if the werewolf is in wolf form).

Virtual Paper Doll: There's even more customization options than in the first two games, and the Ambitions expansion pack lets your Sim become a stylist and change some of your neighbors' outfits.

Wintry Auroral Sky: Justified in the Sim Store exclusive town of Aurora Skies, as it is based on an icelandic township, and as such does feature auroras at nighttime. After all, it's all in the name.

Wishing for More Wishes: This is one of the wish options upon releasing a genie. However, there is a 95% chance you will only get one additional wish, the other 5% chance giving you two. As you used one wish to wish for more wishes, this simply gives you that wish back, resulting in a zero net effect. While you can theoretically gain an infinite amount of wishes by constantly choosing this option, getting an extra wish an average of every twenty times, this is made less lucrative by the fact that you can only make a wish once every 12 (in-game) hours. (On the other hand, if you're down to your last wish, and/or have nothing better to use a wish on for the next 12 hours, it might be worth a try.)

Wishing Well: The star item introduced with Lucky Palms is a wishing well (that looks more like a fountain). Sims can wish for Wealth, Love, Power, Happiness or a Child y throwing a coin in it, One can even fish in it and catch awesome fishes regardless of their fishing level. Coins can be stolen from it, and sometimes the Sim might get a Lucky Coin to play in casinos with by doing so.

Workaholic: It's a trait. Sims with this trait enjoy working and hate missing work.

Working-Class Werewolves: The Supernatural neighbourhood Moonlight Falls has a premade werewolf family living in one of the smaller and simpler houses, whilst a premade vampire family is living in a mansion. Werewolves also automatically get torn and tattered clothing and bare feet when they change into their wolf forms, though they have the option to have these clothes in their human forms too.

You Gotta Have Blue Hair: You can create sims with odd-colored hair. It's considered genetic, as said sims' offspring can also have the same color of hair. The denizens of Dragon Valley start with odd hair colors. Also, if you turn an Imaginary Friend into a real Sim, they will often come out with odd hair or eye colour.

When a sim's cooking reaches level 6, they will finally be ready to prepare a burger.

You need to train the Painting skill up to 8 in order to be able to paint things from photographs.

Your Mom: One of the "mean" social interactions is to imply someone's mother is a llama. When a Supernatural Skeptic is interacting with a fairy, this changes to implying their mother is a glowbug. Other combinations are possible depending on the various life states.

Played straight in the Supernatural expansion. Every full moon your town will become overridden with zombies who will attempt to infect other sims (and eat your plants). If you bought the limited edition you can buy peashooters to defend your house.

If you have Late Night, it's possible to have a vampiric variant. Just having even one vampire lounge in town can lead to the entire town's conversion, as the game's default story progression doesn't regulate (or does a very poor job of regulating) the town's occult ratio. If there are no plasma fruits, the entire town could starve to death. Supernatural mitigates this with the plasma juice packs, which are always available from the fridge as a Quick Meal, so even if the entire town gets turned (now more difficult since supernaturals can't get turned in the base game), the denizens won't die off.

Zombify the Living: In the Supernatural expansion, on a full moon, your still living townies will turn into zombies for the night (dancing to a boom box, eating your plants, and attacking other sims), and then transform back into humans the next morning. You can also use the aptly named "Zombification Elixir" created by the alchemy station to turn a Sim into a zombie for two game days, or the "Potent Zombification Elixir" to turn them into a zombie permanently.

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